"Found! Found!" yelled Thure.
"We've found the gulch! Crooked Arm Gulch!" cried Bud. "Come up and see."
"Durned if I don't!" and Ham leaped for the trunk of the tree, followed by every other man in the company, except Pedro, who, together with Mrs. Dickson, remained below.
"Not too many on the limb at a time," cautioned Rex, who had succeeded in reaching the third limb first. "It might break," and he began working his way along it, closely followed by Dill.
In a couple of minutes he had reached the opening in the wall of rock, a jagged hole some four or five feet in diameter, into which the sturdy limb had thrust itself in such a manner that its branches completely concealed all signs of the opening from below.
"Great! This is great!" Rex exclaimed, as he pushed his way through the branches into the hole.
In a few minutes more all were through the hole, and were standing on a narrow shelf of rock, looking down into a deep, narrow gulch, whose bottom was considerably below the level of the bottom of Lot's Canyon.
"By gum! if we ain't struck th' right spot at last!" and Ham stared in astonishment up the gulch to where it made a bend, like a crook at the elbow in a man's bent arm. "Thar's th' Golden Elbow," and he pointed to the bend; "an' this shore must be Crooked Arm Gulch. Wal, this is what I call luck! Hurra!" and he swung his hat around his head and yelled at the very top of his strong lungs; and every man there joined with him in the yell; and the rocky walls of the narrow gulch echoed and reëchoed the sound, until it seemed as if a hundred men were shouting their joyous yells of triumph.
"Too bad it is so late in the day that we must put off exploring the gulch until to-morrow," Mr. Conroyal lamented, when the excitement had somewhat quieted down.
"Oh, dad, just let us see if the cave is really there!" begged Thure.